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Tag: Cherry Keyboard

This is a situation which brings back memories of my Late Father, who repatriated to Germany in the late 1990s and early 2000s. He had a habit of giving me gifts that included computers and computer accessories.

During a visit which I made to Germany in 2010, he gave me a laptop that he didn’t need anymore, and which is in fact the Acer Aspire 5020 I mentioned before.

But his gifts that year included a good laptop bag, and also a keyboard. What I found peculiar about Dad, was that it had seemed very important to him, to find a keyboard in Germany which emulated the standard 105-key, US keyboard layout. Evidently he had been away from Canada and the USA for so long, that he could not remember what the US keyboard layout was. And so specifically for me, he had purchased a new K.B., which had the U.K. layout. This is entirely logical, because of the geographic proximity Germany has to Great Britain.

But Dad seemed struck so sad, when he learned that the K.B. he had bought for me wasn’t really a US-layout board. I tried to explain to him, that a Linux computer can easily be switched from one keyboard layout to another, and that the only challenge we faced, was to identify which layout this keyboard had. Because, we had actually failed to find this out, for which reason I did not make immediate use of it.

And, we did not have the time to solve the puzzle either, because we had his laptop to set up, as well as numerous other things to do in Germany, while my Father was still alive.

But, Not knowing what the keyboard layout is, can do far more damage, than simply having a layout from a nearby country. But Dad felt it was the other way around.

The computer I name ‘Pheonix’ possessed a Hewlett-Packard keyboard which had always served me well. But now the time came to retire that old K.B., which was my occasion this evening to switch in the one which my Late Father had given to me in 2010.

This K.B. is of the brand-name “Cherry”, and just by Googling that, I found out that Cherry was a later generation, high-quality keyboard brand. I tend to appreciate keyboards that have good tactile properties, and high-quality switches. Even though Cherries are not genuine “Clickety Keyboards”, they come close. I expect that this one will last me a long time. It’s quite robust.